Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Carlson's patrol

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted 18:57, 29 February 2008.

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Carlson's patrol

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Respectfully submit this article about a World War II Pacific campaign event for featured article consideration. The article passed an A-class review with WP:MILHIST. Self-nomination with thanks to Nick Dowling, among others, for significant contributions and assistance. Cla68 (talk) 03:01, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

• Support - Another fantastic article well deserving of a gold star. My only question is who is Ghormley? He's mentioned in passing by surname and not seen again. Heis identity should be clarified (or at least linked by his full name).--Jackyd101 (talk) 16:44, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

• I appreciate the comments. When I shortened the background, I forgot to re-explain who Ghormley was. He was Robert L. Ghormley, commander of Allied forces in the South Pacific. I fixed it. Cla68 (talk) 21:29, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

• Comment Is there a reason "patrol" is not capitalized in the article title, but is in one of the alternate names given in the lead? I think subjects like these are usually considered proper nouns, so Carlson's Patrol would be better. At least, the alternate names should use the same capitalization unless there's a good reason not to. Tuf-Kat (talk) 22:32, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

• There has been discussion on doing it either way, either capitalizing only the first word in the title, or treating the entire title as a proper noun. I'm willing to do it either way. Cla68 (talk) 00:07, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
  • As long as it's consistent, I'm not worried either way. But put me down for a weak vote in favor of capitalizing. Tuf-Kat (talk) 00:51, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

• Support a great article which meets all the criteria. I only added a para, so don't deserve any of the credit for this article. --Nick Dowling (talk) 07:50, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

• Support. Excellent article, meets all the criteria, etc. etc. Carom (talk) 16:36, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

• Support. Very informative article, appears to meet all the criteria. Karanacs (talk) 18:45, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
• Weak oppose. I think the article is pretty good, but I think there are some prose issues that, if taken care of, would make it much better.
  • This sentence is very long and unwieldy. I would separate it into two sentences and better incorporate the information about taking the Japanese by surprise. "Taking the Japanese by surprise, by nightfall on August 8 the 11,000 Allied troops, under the command of Lieutenant General Alexander Vandegrift and mainly consisting of United States Marine Corps units, had secured Tulagi and nearby small islands as well as an airfield under construction at Lunga Point on Guadalcanal."
  • There are other sentences that are very long and could confuse the reader. In many cases, a long sentence describing a particular action is broken up by a long phrase describing the unit undertaking the action. I wonder if it would be better to split these up or rephrase them in many cases.
  • There are a lot of instances of passive voice that could be improved to active voice (ex. "The airfield was later named..." could become "Allied forces later renamed the airfield...")
  • "Additional reinforcements later increased the number of US troops on Guadalcanal to more than 20,000." - were these reinforcements there to keep the perimeter defense around Lunga Point or for other purposes?
  • Watch for areas to streamline text - "being defeated " should probably just be "defeated", "completely unaware " -> "unaware, etc
  • Why is Battle for Henderson Field a further information rather than a main article template?
  • Per WP:MOSQUOTE, quotations should not be broken out from the paragraph unless they are over four lines. The ending quotation should not be offset.
  • I'd like to see the quotation moved up to the beginning of the paragraph about the casualties. I think it would be a good intro to the paragraph, and it seems an odd way to end the article, to me.
  • Do you have any other information about the "high morale" from the quote?

Karanacs (talk) 16:42, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

• Sorry for the delayed response. I've tried to address some of your concerns. I'm a fan of long sentences, as long as the grammar is correct. But, I'll look at splitting some of them. I removed the passive voice that you mentioned, and will look at correcting other instances if I find them. I clarified the 20,000 troops sentence. I don't understand what you mean by "main article template". I removed the block quote. I like finishing articles with pithy quotes as a graceful ending, which is why I placed the sentence at the end, but I understand that the "high morale" phrase probably needs some explanation and will put in some explanation for it. Cla68 (talk) 10:46, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

• Karanacs is referring to the difference between, for example, {{main}}, {{seealso}} and {{further}}. If an article uses summary style of a main daughter article, the {{main}} template can be used; if not, another template is used. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:40, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

• Thank you. I replaced the "further information" template with the "main article" template. Cla68 (talk) 00:15, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
• Thanks to Sandy for clarifying for me. I like the sentence you added on morale, but now I wonder if it would be best to get rid of the example of attrition and go straight to the quote. The current flow has: a) high list of casualties, b) morale is good, c) casualties high in Companies C and F, d) Company E guy talks about high casualties and morale. Removing the info about Companies C and F would still leave an example of the casualties (Company E), but would streamline a bit (and then I wouldn't wonder how A, B, and D fared). Karanacs (talk) 16:29, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

• I've done some copyediting to try to reduce some of the redundancies and tighten the prose a bit. Please let me know what you think. I didn't want to make the following changes because they used different sources:

• First paragraph of Guadalcanal campaign mentions that the troops were mainly US. The really long sentence that starts the next paragraph also says that the troops were mainly American and specifies that they were primarily Marines. Could we take that mention of out the second paragraph and put it in the first instead? (Allied forces (primarily US Marine Corps units).... and then 11,000 Allied troops under the comamnd of ...)

Karanacs (talk) 16:29, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

• I appreciate your helpful edits and agree that they improved the article. I removed the Company C & F casualty example and combined the two paragraphs. I also made the changes to the 1st and 2nd paragraphs that you suggested. The sources are still ok. Cla68 (talk) 06:35, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.